It spreads the beauteous images abroad
Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul.—
Dryden evidently had in mind the language of Themistocles to the King of Persia:—
Speech is like cloth of arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but in packs (i.e. rolled up, or packed up).
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.—Pope: Homer’s Iliad, Book XIV.
Voltaire, in his Œdipus, makes Jocasta say,—
Tout parle contre nous, jusqu’à notre silence.
In Milton’s Samson Agonistes we find,—
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.